Spain hosts Euro culture congress

Meeting to discuss digital cinema, piracy

BARCELONA — Spain will host the European Cultural Industries Forum March 29-30 in Barcelona. Cultural event is the biggest during the country’s six-month European Union presidency.

Up for debate at the forum is how to finance the digital makeover of Europe’s cinemas, globalization of markets, piracy and legal digital content delivery, and regional industry hubs.

Preliminary guidelines of the EU green paper on cultural and creative industries, which will establish new funding policies, will also be presented at the forum, which precedes a Barcelona meeting of EU culture ministers on March 31.

“Old cultural business models are obviously in crisis, but so far new ones are not proving profitable enough,” Lluis Bonet, general coordinator of the forum, told Daily Variety. “Who is going to pay for the digitalization of all the theaters? Nobody knows,” Bonet added.

Digital cinema funding models will be analyzed at two panels sessions.

“The biggest concern right now in Spain is that, because of the economy, the country forgets that culture is its best ambassador to the world,” said Pere Roca, head of TVE’s Culture Channel, a forum panelist.

Event will be attended by heavyweight EU decisionmakers, including Doris Pack, chair of the European committee on culture and education, and Odile Quentin, the European Commission’s director-general of education and culture.

Other attendees include Christoph Borkowsky, prexy of music label Piranha, and Guillaume de Foundamiere, Quantic Dream’s CEO and European vidgames federation president.

Forum is organized by Spain’s Ministry of Culture and the European Commission, in collaboration with Barcelona’s Chamber of Commerce.